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RootsTech 2015

Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Nokia heats up the Megapixel race

One of the big features touted by Apple with the introduction of the iPhone 4S was a "new" 8 Megapixel camera. Nokia, running well behind both Apple and Samsung in sales, has upped the ante by introducing a 41 Megapixel smartphone camera. Yes, you read that right a 41 Megapixel camera. Presently, the very high-end professional imaging systems costing $30,000 or more have sensors with 50 Megapixels. The top-of-the-line Nikon and Canon cameras boast sensors with about 21 or so Megapixels but still cost over $5000. The Nokia 808 pureview smartphone is advertised as follows:

BARCELONA, Spain – Today we announce the Nokia 808 PureView.
This is our first smartphone to feature our exclusive new PureView
technology, which completely blows away any prior expectations about the
quality of camera phone photography.
The Nokia 808 PureView features a 41-megapixel sensor with our highest performance Carl Zeiss optics to date and Nokia’s brand-new pixel oversampling technology.

The description goes on to say:

The excellent camera performance also extends to video. The camera
allows for 1080p recording at 30fps, with 4X lossless zoom thanks to the
big sensor and powerful image processing which handles over 1 billion
pixels per second. At lower resolutions, the capabilities of the zoom
increase, with 6X at 720p and up to 12X lossless zoom in nHD (640 x 360)
recordings. Of course great video is nothing without great audio.

Here the Nokia 808 PureView also sets a new standard. The Nokia 808
PureView is the world’s first video recording device to allow recording
without distortion at audio levels beyond the capability of human
hearing. This allows you to even in the harshest of environment capture
stereo CD-like audio quality.

The resulting photos can be uploaded to Facebook with two clicks. Want some more, here is the intro video:

Now, there are dozens of videos highlighting the Nokia 808 on YouTube that are sprouting like weeds after a rain storm.
It looks like the expensive professional level camera I have may be obsolete?